moguls in the music industry set to receive a huge honor from the chool he attended. the decision is controversial with current students. ahead for us. >> the guest spot. ahead for a drug king pin get to see right here at the table. it's gingham day on the cycle. ari, you have let us down once again. >> the commander in chief trophy to the u.s. naval academy football team. as we wrap up a quiet holiday week in washington, the president is doing some celebrating of his own. it has to do with this. number right here. eight million. that's how many people have now signed up for obama care, and it led the president to declare this. >> i find it strange that the republican position law is still stuck in the same place that it has always been. it seems as if this is the

primary agenda item in the republican political platform. the american people would much rather see us talk about jobs. i recognized that their party is going through the stages of grief. anger and denial and all that stuff. i think that democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the fact that e-mamillions o people like the woman i just described, who i saw in pennsylvania yesterday, were are weesh helping because of something we did. >> this isn't about me. my hope is that we start moving beyond that. >> well, republicans got the message from that. yeah. not so much. here's the thing. the president doesn't seem to care anymore. he beliefs he is finally winning this fight. the question is can he get his fellow democrats to feel the same? henry hertzburg. he will keep krystal's seat warm in this block.

the debate from the other side has rarely been substantive. it's been about boogie men and predicted train wrecks and sort of demagoguery. so many people have it, and that they have to say, well, we have to live with this even though, you know, people like paul krugman say we're still fighting over the new deal. >> well, that moment may be coming. there's something that say democrats are going to -- they may not be confident of actually gaining any seats, but they're going to feel good about themselves in a way they haven't before. >> you look at the ways -- the president, they're talking about the waves of acceptance and what it's going to take for the republicans to get with the program. there are waves of fights over

there as well. when this started out, of course, it was a capitalist program. how do we work with the private insurance market, something many republicans have talked about. i was looking back at some of your coverage from then. 2009 when this debate was active, and you wrote biparti n bipartisanship is a fine sentiment and an appealing tactic, but where health care is concerned, it was never a great idea. that was true then when it came to putting together the votes to get this bill through. seems to be true today still. >> yeah. the program took a very different shape because of that. because of that long effort to get some republican support. in the end there was no republican support. i think maybe there were three republican members of the house that voted for it. zero in the senate. actually, of course, the law could have been a better law if it hadn't borrowed so much from the heritage foundation, but it's not too different from other parts of the american health care system. i mean, we are stuck with a private insurance model, and if

we're going to have that, let's get everybody covered. that seems to be pretty much a commonsense notion. it's hard for republicans to make a coherent case about it. there's this sort of emotional indicates that they make. it's no, no, no. standing up against, against, against. but beyond that they don't have a hell of a lot to say. >> yeah. and i think the emotional case becomes less and less compelling. the more that you do see real results, real people figure out that this health care law is not the sort of terror that republicans have made it out to be. the president, obviously, has taken a very strong line in his press conference yesterday. let's listen a little bit more to that. >> i don't think we should apologize for it. i don't think we should be defensive about it. i think there is a strong, good right story to tell. >> i totally agree with that, and i'm so glad to see democrats starting to embrace the law, starting to realize that this is an actual potential benefit if

you sell it in the right way, but on the other hand it seems to me that there would be a political benefit in motivating the base. if you talk more about the fact that republicans still really want to repeal it, and chairman steel was on the other day and was saying they want to take the senate and then they want to get the presidency in 2016 and they still believe that at that time they will repeal this law. to me that also should be a motivating force for democrats this november. >> yeah. it does turn out that the republicans gain both the house and the senate, which is alas a pretty likely eventuality, then that's going to be a harder argument to make on their part because, you know, they will have passed repeal. the president will have vetoed it. then it's going to be -- then it's going to be a fight that's a little bit better on democratic turf. you know, one of the problems politically with obama care has always been that essentially it's helping a minority of people. most people have health insurance.

most people are happy with their health insurance. so you can appeal to the notion that, hey, this is just for the poor and lazy. that's -- they're taking our money to give it to the poor and lazy. >> right. >> that's what needs to get attacked and overcome. it's a high-minded thing to be in favor of universal health care coverage if you have already got health care coverage. >> it's go that helps a lot of nonvoters. >> i was really interested in this poll result that the keiser family foundation put out. every month they survey people and track specifically the uninsured, how they feel about the health care law, and you saw this big movement as the roll-out was kind of rocky and actually views among the uninsured got -- then it really reversed in march. you saw a big shift towards more favorable views. not quints dentally, i think. march and the very beginning of april had nearly half of all the sign-ups that got done on the health insurance exchanges. this is something very hopeful to me, which is that public opinion about the law seems to be linked actual performance of the law. with things are going badly, it gets less popular, and when

things will every are going well, it's more popular. if that's going to happen, what does that mean for the politics of this between now and the election as obama care turns into less of a concept and more of a concrete reality in people's lives? >> well, it's going to be a marginal good thing for democrats. you know, democrats are up against so many structural barriers in this election. for example, just the fact that there are so many more one-sided house districts than there are for republics than democrats. if you have an absolutely even vote, popular vote, you end up with a substantial republican majority just because of the way -- not just because of gerrymandering, but because of demographics. there's no getting around it. there's a bigger -- there's a bigger mountain for the -- to push that rock up than for the republicans. >> part of why i'm suspicious of those polls, right, is because there's been so much demagoguing against this, the ads against the aca have been 5-1 negative.

hundreds of millions of dollars in just lying to people about what it actually does or does not do. and people are swayed by these things. so, you know, you wonder if implementation, right, if actually working with the law will make a difference, but most of the folks who are voters, as we've said, will not actually interact with the law, right? so, i mean, it's sort of hard to see where do we get that change, and we sort of have a nation where we have folks who are one-sided and the other side, and fagts don't really make people change their mind. they start with the pieces of i'm a republican, and i hate everything obama does. i'm a democrat. i like the things obama does. then where do we get people actually changing their mind about this thing so we can move forward? >> if democrats are enthusiastic, if democrats are in a good mood, not necessarily about their electoral prospects, but about what they're doing, about if they feel like they're on the moral right side of this, they're going to campaign harder, they're going to do better, they're going to come across more confident, and i

think that's going to help. whether it means that they take back the house, that's highly doubtful. >> well, that's highly doubtful, yeah. >> if they do well and keep the senate, then we'll start to feel a lot better. until then, we'll all be very nervous. thank you very much. lovely to see you again. up next, the white house continues to closely monitor the spiralling situation in ukraine. we're watching it too. you're watching the cycle. it's good friday, april 1th. [ female announcer ] who are we?

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tensions in ukraine intensified even further today

as pro-russian forces refuse to leave occupied ukrainian government buildings. they ignored thursday's agreement in geneva between the u.s., europe, and russia that called for pro-russian forces to disband and vacate those buildings. president obama sounds skeptical at best of russia's desire to enforce it. >> my hope is that we actually do see follow-through over the next several days, but i don't think given past performance that we can count on that, and we have to be prepared to potentially respond to what continue to be, you know, efforts of interference by the russians in eastern and southern ukraine. and the president has good reason. u.s. defense officials tell nbc news despite the international interim agreement there are still 40,000 russian troops encamped along the border with ukraine. according to one senior defense official, russia has deployed special operations forces, airborne paratroopers, tanks,

artillery, rocket launchers, attack helicopters, and combat aircraft. so with russia seemingly ignoring all our sanctions and agreements, the question now is have we come to that "or else moment?" here to help answer that is linda kinsler. she's covering this for the new republic. as i was just mentioning, pro-russian forces refusing to vacate their occupied -- the beings that they've occupied. you also have president vladimir putin calling the area in the eastern ukraine new russia. this does not look very good. >> right. well, the separatists in eastern ukraine have said that they will not leave their post and the occupied government buildings until there is a referendum on the autonomy of the regions. something that the ukrainian prime minister and president said that they are open to. so what they really would like is for increased power of the

regional governments to, for example, use russia as an official language. >> linda, there's a lot of talk, of course, in this country about what the u.s. should do, what obama should do, and i think a lot of that talk is missing that. europe is in much better a position to do something about this, and this is really their fight more than ours. judy dempsey at strategic europe is what's at stake is europe's post-gold war borders, but the majority of e.u. member states do not believe or do not want to believe that they are threatened by russia's actions, and because they do not feel threatened, they do not see the need to protect ukraine. do you think that sooner or later europe will regret not protecting ukraine? >> well, i think that that's not quite right. i think that some e.u. member states such as the baltics do feel very threatened by what's going on in ukraine because they, too, are former soviet states, and they have called for the e.u. and nato to increase deployments within their borders. canada has already -- canada and

the united states have already sent additional jets to help poland and the soviet -- and the baltic states. and i think that -- i don't think that e.u. -- the e.u. will regret it per se. i think that they are slowly coming to the realization that stronger sanctions are what is needed and slowly coming to deploy additional troops. >> linda, you have written some about how this crisis is affecting u.s. and russian cooperation on counterterrorism, the two countries have a shared interest in combatting islamic extremism, including dagestan where the tsarnaev brothers came from. we're one year out from the boston booming. what are you finding out about how the tension is affecting our ability to cooperate in that area? >> it's a lot of what you would think it would be. as relations between russia and the united states become increasingly cold, it's hard to cooperate in matters of intelligence as well. while some experts have said it's still position to -- for

example, intelligence not be removed for what's going on politically, it's not possible for the intelligence agencies of russia wra and the united states to cooperate when it comes to counterterrorism efforts domestically, both in the united states and russia. when they are working against each other in ukraine. >> when people are watching this seemingly escalating conflict each week we're seeing new reports of often shocking allegations and problems there, and, yet, we're also hearing about negotiations over settlements and peaceful indications for a basic view here of the u.s. set of priorities. what is the u.s. national interest in ukraine? >> well, the u.s. national interest would be to make sure that ukraine has a new stable government, which will be elected in the may 25th elections, and that there are sweeping constitutional reforms enacted as soon as possible. the ukrainian government is already in the midst of putting together a new constitution, it says, and russia is doing

everything that it can to prevent the may 25th elections from going forward. that is where our support should be. >> so, linda, next week what do you think we'll be talking about in this situation? >> i don't anticipate that much will change next week in that the separatists remain within the occupied government buildings throughout eastern ukraine. it's possible that we would see an escalation if the kremlin does not help remove this separatists from those buildings as agreed to in the geneva agreements. we've seen already today that russia disagrees with the interpretation of the geneva accords that the u.s. and the e.u. have promoted. >> all right. linda kinsler, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. >> you know what, guys, you know what this friday needs? >> what? >> maybe a little diddy controversy. we mix it up on the question of whether the college drop-out deserves an honor rather degree now. >> that would be kanye.

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four people remain missing after the worst av tloorchlg ever hit mount everest. the bodies of 12 sherpa guides have been found. they were at 19,000 feet securing ropes for climber whz the snow gave way. nbc news crews were on site preparing for a production for the discovery channel. they were shaken up, but thankfully all are safe. >> our plan was to leave last night along with the sherpas. we delayed for 24 hours. we're still down here safe. as you know, 13 sherpas died in the he's fall last night. when radio reports started coming off the mountain that -- >> the captain of the ferry in south korea was arrest. he was one of the first to abandon ship ahead of passengers which is a criminal offense. he used a hood to cover his face

at a news conference today where he made a brief apology. rescue operations are being made. the death toll stands at 28, and it's expected to rise. 268 passengers are still missing. it is good friday as pope francis gets ready to lead easter mass this sunday. he spent -- some, however, see this as a controversial practice because the pope traditionally only washes the feet of priests. a portland teenager accused of urine ating into a city reservoir insists he pe ed on a wall -- he was captured by security cameras appearing to relieve himself right into 38 million gallons of water. good one, kid. officials are now dumping all that water out of an abundance of caution despite contamination tests coming back negative. conservation groups say, hey, that's an ebbing stream overreaction because birds and other animals use the reservoir

as a toilet all the time. that does not make anyone feel better. ellison, jobs, dell. all dropped out of ledge -- college. silicon vael valley is the cradle of innovation because of drop-outs. college has become a cruel, expensive joke on the poor and the middle class. the it benefits only the perpetrators of it.

the bloated administrators. >> you are a dangerous man. spewing ignorance. >> i don't think so. >> i don't think so. the whole debate in a few pitch at howard university which is awarding an honor rather doctorate to, wait for tshg the music mogul sean diddy colmes. he is obviously successful. he was named hip-hop's wealthiest artist last year from "forbes wroish "he also dropped out of howard. now, plenty of drop-outs have gotten hoern rather degrees before, but some howard students and alumni are questioning whether he should get this academic honor, especially instead of so many other talented howard graduates. let's take it to the table. i want to get one thing right out of the way in terms of bias. people may not know this, josh, some people go on tour with the grateful dead or with the babd fish. you went on tour with mace. you went to 15 of their shows. >> yes. 17. >> being a big mace fan puts you in the diddy family. i want people to know that going into the discussion. as for the debate here, it's not

even really about diddy at all. i have a lot of musical beef with diddy. i'm going to put that to the side. i'm going to put that all the way to the side and speak to the fact that howard university is an incredible institution and a historically black college. they can obviously give out the award to whom ever they want. at a broad level, the idea that these academic institutions are now taking on the capitalist celebrity fixations that we have in this country and taking these honors and bestoeing them on individuals sometimes, diddy included, but i would also include other big business men in this list certainly, who i don't think have contributed a great deal necessarily to learning, to science, to knowledge. i think they're getting their award largely because they made a lot of money, and i can see maybe a business school doing that, but we've seen this at harvard. we're seeing it at howard. we've every we're seeing it at a bunch of what i consider top institutions. i think it says a lot about the shifting values of the university. i took a look at some of howard's past honorees.

there are a lot of other ones. sonja sodormior, bill clinton, and they have made undoubtedly bigger contributions than business people like diddy. >> yeah. i don't agree with that at all. it's not like we're talking about giving this sort of award to kim kardashian. puffy is actually add aid lot. he is an incredible businessman who has been successful on multiple platforms because of drive, intelligence, marketing, prowess. he has been extraordinarily successful at perhaps the most difficult time to be successful in the history of the music business as well as exploding into the clothing industry, as well as the clothing and vodka industry, which is very difficult. it's ease where i to sort of hate on puff and, like, act like he didn't do nothing and his music is whack, but that's not at all accurate. he has had an incredible professional career. rising up from being an intern to being one of the most successful moguls of his time, and he has had to do it by being very -- look at puff talking

about how he succeeded. >> there's more music being consumed now than ever, you know? >> there's less music being sold now than ever. >> that don't mean there's less money being made. i'm going to adapt to the situation. if i'm not getting my money from records, then we're going to get our money from shows, appearances, endorsements, building other brands, television shows. >> look, that guy i interviewed -- i don't know who that guy was. >> that's a really fantastic shirt you're wearing. that's why you pulled the clip, right? >> the shirt is solid. the suit -- i didn't choose that. you know, the guys had to go through a lot to get where he is. he has a lot that he can say, and he represents the howard brand. he is a howard guy. that's always been part of his brand. it's a valuable sort of role model for the students. >> and i inject this idea that we don't want to be honoring business leaders with honor rather degrees. honor rather degree are a renewable resource. the fact that you give one to diddy, it doesn't mean you can't give one to today mior or smib

else. >> it's usually because they make a product that has improved people's lives. that's certainly been the case with diddy. it's not true of everybody who gets rich in business, and there are some individual cases where you might say well this person got rich, but he did something that was actually bad or use it is for society. when you have people who have become successful because of doing something merit orus and something that is in the art world where, you know, you give honor rather degrees to honor people for their artistic success even if they didn't become hugely successful in business, diddy has done multiple things at once. i think he is a good honoree. >> i hear that. i also want to flag there was a player hating allegation made. i'm not player hating on diddy. it's not even about diddy because he is not awarding it to himself, okay? diddy is receiving it. it's really about -- >> your credit ike is of howard. >> correct. to the extent -- it's not just howard by any means. harvard has done this, and these universities. my view is the rewards are already there. they already got the money from being good at capitalism. they already got the media attention and the art embrace. the question about our

universities is how much are they bowing to a celebrity model. one more important, you're saying it's not a renewable resource. sure. they're only giving out a few. there's a bunch of people who did graduate howard and have done public service and have done science who are not getting the award. there's not an unlimited number either. >> if your beef is with howard and they're thinking about the, what, 1800 students who will come to this event, and who will motivate them, who will say -- who can they use to say, hey, here's a direction you can go in your life, the guy is not anti-school. he is just saying there are other ways to learn. i went to school for a while. i had an opportunity to join the record business, and so i followed that. there are other ways to learn. there's few better role models for black students who want to learn how to move up, how to use your drive, how to use your intelligence, how to use every skill that you have than this guy, and especially somebody who will resonate with them, right? you can bring out colin powell. perhaps a better role model.

sonja -- will they resonate like puffy? absolutely not. >> that is group of people who are already graduating from school. certainly the audience doesn't need a message about the importance of finishing college. that's something they checked the box off. i think you don't give honor rather degrees to reward people who are under appreciated or at least that's not always what they're about. most of the kinds of success are their own reward. sonja sodermeyor doesn't need an honor rather degree to feel good about herself. they give, it first of all, to honor huge achievement, and also because they want to bring people back who can serve as role models and who serve as a good example. >> i hear that, and it reminds me of another one of your favorite rap groups who said money, power, respect, what you need in life, and that's the josh barrow way. up next, we have a fight over food and a term you are going to need to remember. gmo. as the cycle rolls on.

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summer barbecue season is just around the corner. genetically modified corn on the cob. hmm. according to the usda 85% of corn grown in the u.s. is genetically modified, including an engineered sweet corn that monday santo released in 2012. that's far from a it. the world health organization gee fines it as foods who derived from organisms. that can be done to extend shelf life or make crops more resistant to pests and diseases. there's a growing debailt bait in statehouses and congress over how they should be labelled. currently the u.s. does not require products to be labelled fw mo or non-gmo. vermont's state senate requires labels on all genetically modified food. it could head to the governor as soon as next week. while in d.c. a bill is making the rounds that would make the fda the only entity that could require labels, which basically a way to preempt legislation ix like the legislation in vermont. in our latest article for the washington examiner, politics

writer and friend of the show betsy woodruff examines the issue. she joins us at the table. >> absolutely. tell us what's going in vermont? what's motivate this push? is this a real health concern that's behind this, or why the labels? >> large question of whether or not genetically modified organisms needs to be labels here is a huge issue, and it shouldn't shiz every surprise us that vermont is the state that's gotten the closest of having the labels required. are these foods dangerous, and do they deserve to literally be stigmatized or marked? seems like overwhelmingly the voters in vermont believe that they do, but in d.c. obviously there's a significant important congressman who thinks that that's not true. >> well, i mean, you know, almost all policy making debates are centered around or ended with what does the big business in this situation actually want? can you imagine big food allowing this to go forward? >> it's clearly problematic for big food. when you made it more difficult for them to market their product. i think auto the one hand it's

easy to say companies that we might find problematic support a policy. therefore, it's a bad policy. but, on the other hand, it's also important to look at this just in terms of the merits. science magazine said gmo's are great and treating these footsdz like they're dangerous and problematic can have negative reprecussions for people in developing nations where gmo's result in cheaper food, food that's more accessible. >> i appreciated that point. that's -- oh, sorry. go ahead, krystal. >> i think calling it stigmatized is a loaded term. i would say transparency is perhaps more neutral way of describing what they're asking for here. they lead to these sort of resistant super weed that is no matter how much round-up you spray on them, just continue to grow, which, of course, leads to putting more and more, and more pesticides on the crops.

>> right. absolutely. so there's definitely an interesting scientific debate about gmo's and the question then is how does labelling affect that? would labelling make people more or less likely to consume jeanettely modified organisms or jeanettely modified products, and will that affect the environmental concerns? >> yeah. i hear that, and i think the science is important and totally legit debate because it's friday and on fridays we often do real talk fridays on the cycle. my argument here is let's take a step back and think about why we're even having this kind of debate not over whether or not to use these products, right? that's where you apply the science. whether or not the government can make sure consumers get accurate information in the first place, right? here coming at that time in the course and do first amendment challenge, and there's a debate there. when all we're saying is, hey,

when i flip over the product, can i look on the back and tind out whether there's more or less sodium, a lot of calories, a lot of fat, and some people will make different decision on that. isn't it funky, and let's have this debate. isn't it funky that that is -- >> funky? >> in the negative sense of the word, bad funky, that we can't even -- we can't even get these laws through a lobbyist choke hold congress to give people some information? >> the counter point to that is it's perfectly legal to say a food is not gmo. if organizations or businesses think that it's more profitable to inform consumers that their produce or their breakfast cereal or whatever doesn't have gengenetically modified ingredients, they can do that. there are certain things that you can't put labels of on food. i think there are certain hormones that you're not supposed to say this food is x hormone-free, but you can say this food is gmo free. the question is whether or not it should be required is slightly different there. people can find out. >> that's the way most product specifications work. the deposit doesn't make that many rules about what you have to say, but then consumers will say i want this information and so it's provided.

like there's no law that food producers have to say their food is kosher. est because have a bonefied public health interest. we want people to know whether foods are going to make them fat. we want people to know whether there are things that they are allergic to in foods. there hasn't been a -- >> you love kosher food, but you also love transparency. >> i do. indeed. one of the things that to me seems a bit odd with your philosophy typically is markets work better when there's more information, so clearly there is a demand here from the population to have this information, and because of the way that our political system is structured, they're not able to get the information that they want to be able to make the best market-based decision for themselves and their family.

>> they can get information if they buy foods that certify themselves as being gmo-free, and there's a robust market. whole foods has been lobbying for these kinds of restrictions because they're already in a lot of places compliant with this, and they want their competitors to have to face that same cost. there's already availability. >> people have to go out and search out the information is quite a high burden, and people quite often buy food that is bad for them not understanding that it's bad for them. >> as long as you're talking about information, going back to the vermont bill, one thing that's really interesting is that what needs to be reconciled between the house and senate version is how to label dari products. for instance, the cows aren't genetically modified, but the question is if cheese, for instance, is produced by a cow that had genetically modified grain, does that count as a gmo product? it's not necessarily always as simple as people deserve to know about gmo's. there's a lot of nuance here that gets tricky. >> interesting. >> great. thanks, betsy, and up next, my dad, the drug dealer, the unbelievable true story of a guy working right here in 30 rock. [ female announcer ] who are we?

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say "hi" rudy. [ barks ] [ chuckles ] i'd do anything to keep this guy happy and healthy. that's why i'm so excited about these new milk-bone brushing chews. whoa, i'm not the only one. it's a brilliant new way to take care of his teeth. clinically proven as effective as brushing. ok, here you go. have you ever seen a dog brush his own teeth? the twist and nub design cleans all the way down to the gum line, even reaching the back teeth. they taste like a treat, but they clean like a toothbrush. nothing says you care like a milk-bone brushing chew. [ barks ] >> there's lots of people walk around my office like there's lots of people walking around your office. people who appear like nice, normal people, but if you got them to tell you the story of their life, you probably would be like, whoa. look at this guy. tony decoppell, looks like a myself guy. a sort of guy a girl might say i could take him home to mom. he is married, but i digress. you would never expect sweet tony to open up and say, yeah, my life includes -- my life

story includes an old man who is one of the biggest marijuana dealers in america. tony's gripping new memoir "the last pirate" he writes if you smoke column bian weed in the 70s and 80s, i owe you a thank you card. tony, tell us about your dad. >> my dad was one of hundreds of americans who got involved in the dealing business in the 1970s when it seemed like jimmy carter was going to pull the lever and say legalize it. he thought it would be smart from a business perspective, and then when reagan came along, he was already sort of deep in it, and there was no turning back. >> paid for my private school. that's what i mean by thank you. >> and, tony, you actually -- you didn't realize what was going on as you were growing up. how did you learn the truth about what was happening? >> i came to the brink of fatherhood myself. my wife was expecting, and i thought, you know, i heard rumors about my father, but it was time to get to the bottom of it. so i called the national archives, keeper of 1% of the paperwork produced by the u.s. government, the most important stuff, the stuff historians

want, and i was, like, do you happen to have anything on the exploits of one anthony edward decoppell. i got this e-mail with an indictment in it, and it was tore his last job in 1986 for 35,000 pounds of marijuana. >> that's a lot. >> 35,000. >> there's a grand marijuana joint. can you do the math. it's millions of joints. >> how does your family feel about you bringing this all to light? are they similarly proud of your father's business exploits? >> almost everybody in the family was involved to some extent. when i confronted my mother she said, yeah, we were going to tell you. i said how many people were into this? she said everyone that you need to call on the day i die was part of the business. aunts, uncles. it wasn't that unusual because, like i said, it really felt in the 1970s like not only were you breaking an unjust law and being the rosa parks of legalization, but you were making a smart business investment because this was going to take off. 35 extra years, but they were right. >> you're talking about a

cultural -- at the time that continues to shift. when we look at alcohol in this country, right, we have at least two views of it. we have the party view that you can have some alcohol. can you if to a happy hour. you can have a wane with dinner, and many people folks lives have been ruined by alcoholism. we look at that in two categories. for a long time we've had a single category for all other drugs from crack down to pot, which is just say no. this is terrible. zero tolerance. we've talked a lot on this show about the drug laws that reflect that. do you think that we're shifting now. at least in the area of pot, which is pretty different from, say, heroin into more of a bifor indicated model of alcohol, that it can be used responsibly and regulated in places like colorado even if in some other cases with mass dealing or violence, it's problematic? >> i want to say yes, that we are shifting, and certainly the public opinion polls show a movement, but, i mean well, just had news come out today about two deaths in colorado that have been tied to marijuana. i don't think they're tied very strongly, but they're being presented as a marijuana cost. the kid took a bite of some kind

of a marijuana candy, got jittery, got wild, jumped off a balcony, and the kosher entered marijuana into the record as the cause of death. that's the kind of development that aaron sorkin would script into a program. >> what do you think? >> what do i think? do i think that people -- the thing that makes me uncomfortable about the legalization point is the potential for big business. i think people should smoke it and grow it. i think they should be free to pass it and par take, but i'm somewhat uncomfortable with the notion of 30, 40 years from now in your face advertising on this substance that is not 100% harmless. it's still a drug. >> your father, you write, was proud of the organization he created and did you write that you too were proud to see that your father had created this big organization? moving 35,000 pounds of anything, much less marijuana, takes a huge of organization. >> it's like smuggling elephants into the country. my understanding of my father prior to -- he had his own

substance abuse problems. i got that indictment, and i was, like, oh, he is a criminal. fantastic. he is a criminal. and a big one. >> what's your relationship now? >> now it's iffy. he is relationship now? >> it's iffy. he's still sort of a cautionary tale. i see my worst in him and the echoes trouble me. >> tony, how does the rest of your family feel about you sort of telling the story in a very public way? >> my father absolutely loves it. >> because like i said, he feels and he's not unusual, all of the dealers from those days feel like heroes, they feel like he's been vindicated. his biggest problem is that he wasn't on the cover. >> part of the story is he left when you were six years old, right? >> yeah. >> he walked away. >> i saw him a couple of times after that and never healthy and it was the beginning of the end. >> part of the story is interesting and fun and he was sort of pushing the limits when he thought the law would turn aside. but this is a broken family and

that is part of your life and your father was not around. >> there is certainly that. but still could you tie it back to ambition and people could think i'm delusional for finding this conclusion, but as far as i'm concerned, he really wanted to be good at this. and for 15 years he was and that ambition took him affrayway from his family. other kinds of ambitions that societies accept would be lauded so i choose to see it as a somewhat laudable profession. >> i'm sure he regrets getting caught and sent to prison. if he could do it over again, would he still go into this business? >> he has said over and over again i would do everything exactly the same way. i would make all the money and i would lose it all. he ended up homeless. >> isn't that crazy? >> it is until you think about part of the attraction to the criminal life is the romanticism. there's many criminals and academics study this, there's a traditional art to the criminal

life. they almost want to get caught at the end because to get caught is to get your applause. >> has learning about your dad, has that in a way helped you understand yourself? >> yes. absolutely. on the one hand i've learned that dna is not destiny. but on the other hand, i've learned that it does shape your pursuits. on a neurochemical level, i probably get something of a thrill he got dealing when i pull in a story that's better than average. that might sound totally crazy. but there's a similarity, right? nbc gives me money, i make promises, they give me money, i run out in the field and try to get something. when i pull it off, it doesn't feel the same as 35,000 tons of pot. >> you're hooked on news. >> i can quit any time i want. >> sure, but you cannot quit and that's the truth. >> interesting stuff. tony dokopil, thank you very much. up next, remembering a magic man of literature, gabriel garcia-marquez.

gabriel garcia-marquez one of the greatest writers of all time. a man whose pen created wofrlds where all was possible and chronicled the spirit of latin america. that man passed away yesterday at his home in mexico city. he was 87 years old. he grew up in columbia, came from nothing and always wanted to be a writer. in 1966, when he finished "100 years of solitude" he was so poor that his wife had to pawn her hair dryer and electric heater so they could afford postage to mail the manuscript

to his publisher. he never again worried about money. because that revolutionary book went on to sell over 30 million copies. listen to the music of its opening sentences, many years later as he faced the firing squad, the colonel was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. at that time macondo was a village of 20 adobe houses built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. the world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them, it was necessary to point. in 100 years and other gorgeous novels, and his awesome short stories marquez showed us the power of a literary genre called magical realism, a style where

supernatural things happened in everyday situations and moments are imbued with a certain magic. in his beautiful memoir "living to tell the tale" he explains that his childhood in colombia prepared him to write this way. i cannot imagine a family environment more favorable to my vocation than that lunatic house, those who knew me when i was four say i spoke only to recount absurdities, but for the most part my stories were simple episodes from daily life that i made more attractive with fantastic details so that the adults would notice me. that family life was centered around his grandmother. >>. [ speaking spanish ]

marquez was friends with president clinton 0 who sent his praise, saying i was amazed by his gifts of imagination, clarity of thought. and president obama said as a representative and voice for the people of the americas, and as a master of the magic realism genre, he has inspired so many others, marquez was a long-time friend of fidel castro, which led to criminal confusion and controversy. he said they mostly spoke of culture, though marquez says he was able to use the relationship to free several political prisoners from cuban jails, if literature can have a people's champ then marquez was it. he came from the bottom and rose to the top of literature, by spinning latin american lives and stories into gold. his pen changed the world and in 1,000 years if humans are still on this planet, some will still be reading marquez. that does it for "the cycle"

"now with alex wagner" starts now. when it comes to the aca, republicans have reached their latest stage of grief, denial ain't just a river in egypt. it's friday april 18th, and this is "now." their party has gone through the stages of grief, anger and denial and all that stuff. >> two numbers, 8 million in 2014. >> the president has his swagger back. >> the president obama tells republicans it's time to move on from the health care fight. republicans respond -- >> hell no, you can't. >> at least eight million have enrolled. >> are you kidding me? >> how many times have republicans in the house tried to repeal this law? >> a few. >> they're not stopping this this debate. this is something that unites their base. >> the law remains unpopular nationally. they're going to keep talking about it. >> even i